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NHL, NHLPA meet for fourth straight day

NEW YORK -- Representatives from the National Hockey League and National Hockey League Players' Association met Friday for a fourth straight day of negotiations geared toward establishing a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The meetings Friday, split into different sessions, broke up for the night slightly after 6 p.m.

There is no follow-up meeting scheduled at this point.

"We met on a fourth consecutive day and we're waiting to hear from the Players' Association in terms of when they'll be ready for us to get back together again," NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said.

NHLPA Executive Director Don Fehr said that the Union would discuss its options again Saturday morning before reaching out to the League.

"Given where we are, obviously we're going to take off the rest of the evening and we're going to reconvene [Saturday] morning internally and we'll come to grips with where we are and what to do next," Fehr said. "I don't know what will happen next. I think it is somewhere probably likely that at some point we will get back together with the NHL [Saturday], but we have to consider [Saturday] morning and communicate with them."

Commissioner Bettman said that the League was available to meet this weekend.

"We're waiting to hear back from them, and whenever they're ready, we're prepared to get back together," Bettman said.

The NHL and NHLPA have been without a CBA since Sept. 16.

The 2012-13 regular-season schedule has been canceled through Nov. 30, as have the 2013 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic and the accompanying Hockeytown Winter Festival.